Walking Along a Cold Road to a Dead End
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: On a trip to a snowy planet, the Doctor and Clara discuss the end of planets and places and people.


Clara calls it a snow planet, but the Doctor scoffs, "Why does everything have to be categorized?" His hands come up to curl around the air as his shoulder shrug almost painfully, watching her giggle. "It's not a _space_ restaurant, it's just a restaurant and it's not a _snow_ planet, it's got a name – learn the name, Teach."

Wrinkling her nose, she replies honestly, "Rather call it snow planet than try to say its proper name."

"Siliohosforothsicornus," the Doctor repeats, nodding and gesturing towards her, "Not difficult. Other companions have remembered worse."

They're making their way along a path, boots crusted with snow that's stuck to the warmth there, and Clara chuckles softly into the air, breath flowing out behind her in a line of hazy white smoke as the Doctor grits his teeth, Sonic held out towards the trees at their right. Hands coming up to rub at her arms on either side, Clara watches his frustration a moment before nodding her head. It wasn't that she didn't remember the name, she really didn't like having to repeat it over and over. And there was a certain charm in calling something from space a _space_ something or other, especially when she thought about it later that day, or after dropping into bed, thinking back on her time with him.

He'd taken her to a space restaurant.

They'd eaten space food.

Had a space dance.

"It makes it special," she offers lightly, head tilting as her eyebrows lift. "Doctor," she calls, earning a huff before she repeats to assure him, "It makes what we do special. Not merely some name remembered in my head, but a type of planet. A type of _planet_. That might seem mundane to you after all these years, but it's not lost its meaning to me yet."

The corners of his mouth rise ever so slightly and Clara nods approvingly, looking out along the path carved through the woods, imagining that at some point in time it had been a roadway. It used to be inhabited, the Doctor told her before they'd landed. It used to be a thriving civilization. It used to be _warm_. And in a time where travel through space was as easily done as said, a new _better_ planet was sought and the majority of the people left. There were only a few small cities that remained, and they were supposed to land in one, but the Tardis had overshot, landing them several miles away.

Probably, Clara thought, to make her suffer.

She looks to the Doctor, walking casually, before asking, "Aren't you cold?"

"Why would I be cold?" He instantly retorts on a laugh, turning to take her in – her hunched posture, her shivering chin, her wrinkled nose – before stopping, thinking, brow dropping as his free hand lands atop his hip, studying her and then nodding. "Hold this," he hands her the Sonic.

Clara imagines he has some plan, some device or pill in one of his coat pockets, and she smiles hopefully, then watches him remove his jacket, fluffing it in the air at his side before draping it over her extended arm. "Oh," she begins, but he starts to pull the hooded jumper over his head as well. "Um," Clara hums, looking to his pale arms, jutted out from the worn sleeves of an old t-shirt from some rock band she's never heard of.

"Hold this," he hands her the jumper, then takes back the jacket, pushing his arms through and buttoning it at his chest once to nod and look to her. "Well," his hands lift in her direction as his head bows.

Glancing down at the Sonic and jumper, she shrugs, "Sorry, bit lost."

He takes the Sonic to pocket it and then looks to her confusion again before grunting and plucking the jumper from her hands, working it about carefully in his fingers as she shakes her head to begin to ask a question before he slings it over her, tugging it down until her head pops up through the neck hole, veiled by the oversized hood. Clara stares up at him through her length of bangs, disheveled in the process, and she half smiles when he does. She watches the color rise in his cheeks as he takes a step back and crosses his arms and then drops them at his side, lifting a hand and releasing a huff.

"That better?" He shoots, and it's light in her ears in spite of the harshness he'd intended.

Glancing down, she works her hands up through the arms and clings to the edges of the black jumper. It smells of him, clean, but with that little hint of metal and smoke and sweat from working too long in his Tardis, and she hugs herself to nod before lifting her hands to brush the hair from her face, suddenly aware they're simply standing in the middle of that long ago abandoned street.

In a light snow flurry.

Listening to nothing but their breaths.

And she imagines it's romantic, in a way.

Clara grins when he turns away from her abruptly to continue walking. She wonders whether he were thinking the same just then, or if he'd had another thought entirely. Had he considered the moments taken to alleviate her temperature anomaly, as he'd call it, a waste of time? Had he considered shouting at her to be better prepared when she left the Tardis, or that she should have stopped him at the doors to head back inside for a jacket. Of course the Doctor wouldn't think to think of the chivalry of his actions, or how readily he'd done them. She presses her lips together as the Doctor looks away, back out to the white of the trees and the pale blue of the sky above them.

"Perhaps I've arrived too late," he ponders aloud, "Too far into the future for any civilization to remain."

"Perhaps," Clara responds quietly, body swaying as she walks just beside him, her boot kicking away at a clump of snow as she looks to him to add, "Perhaps we should head back to the Tardis before either of us finds our death out in this cold." She laughs to herself, reminding quietly, "Only one of us has regenerations, you know."

The words stop his steps again and he frowns down at her, scanning her quickly to declare, "Internal body temperature is well within norms for a human," then he gasps, "Why would you even joke of death?"

Laughing, she tells him quietly, "Because you're supposed to take it as a joke and not scan me with a Sonic to make sure my temperature is _within norms for a human_."

She watches his hand come up swiftly, rubbing into his brow before pinching at the bridge of his nose and she can see the tension working its way through his limbs as he grimaces and then twists his face out of her line of sight, looking out at the long road ahead of them. Listening to that utter silence standing between them and circling around them, waiting for his response. Because there's something going on in his head, she knows. Maybe she'd joked about it because he'd seemed so preoccupied. Under the lake and in that Viking village and other little moments she'd watched him catch his breath to consider her end.

In case it comes.

Because it will.

Clara steps into him and she wraps her arms around his midsection, resting her cheek to his back and taking a long breath with him. For a moment he doesn't move, and then his arms lower and she can feel him bow his head. "If we see nothing else besides this snowy road, the trip to Siliohosforothsicornus will have been worth it, Doctor."

"I'd just hoped there'd be something for you to see that you hadn't seen before," he tells her quietly. "In each of the villages, there's a hole, burrowed deep into the crust of the planet, where the warmth still permeates, and in them plant life, lush and green and blooming, encircle heated waters the people bathe in." The Doctor laughs as he turns to tell her, "I thought you'd fancy a swim."

Clara chuckles lightly with him, then allows, "Swim in space hot pools, sounds fantastic."

On a nod, he laments, "But I fear I've gone too far."

Releasing him, she hides her hands back into the sleeves of his jumper as she makes her way to his side and then continues walking before him, calling back, "Only one way to find out, Doctor."

She doesn't turn when she hears his small breath of amusement, merely waits until he quickly crosses the distances to return to his place at her side and they walk slowly down that cold road towards the sad realization that the Doctor's prediction had been better than Clara's hope, but she doesn't really mind. Wrapped in his jumper, standing on the outskirts of what had once been a quaint little town, she smiles and waits for him to turn to her. For a moment she watches the sadness in his eyes, before his lips lift just a touch.

Clara asks softly, "What is it, Doctor? You've been in a mood recently, in spite of the adventure and the travelling and the wonderful things we have seen." She inches into him to nudge him. "What is it?"

Thinking back through their conversations recently, she thinks maybe she knows and she holds her breath as he tells her honestly, "I'm wondering what the last great thing Clara Oswald will see will be."

On a laugh, she tells him boisterously, "A bird on a street, probably. Something _entirely_ mundane." She laughs again and looks out over the rubble that's covered over in snow and the carcasses of trees. "Something ordinary, like most everyone else."

"I wish there were more days," he sighs, kicking at the snow. His palms are pressed into his pockets and his head is bowed and Clara can see the red of his eyes as he repeats, "I always wish there were more days."

Reaching to loop her arm through his, she leans her chin into his arm and explains, "Doctor, there are just the right amount of days. It doesn't seem like enough, and I know more than most that it doesn't seem fair that some get so many while some get so little, but we all have just the right amount of days."

He smiles down at her, a genuine smile as he studies her eyes, before telling her, "I wish I could add to yours the way you did to mine."

Giggling, Clara reminds, "Doctor, you add to my days in a different way is all." She looks out at the village and releases a long breath. "This is what remaines of an alien race, on the dying surface of an alien planet, in the center of a dwindling solar system and that sounds morose, but it's a sight to see, isn't it. It's not quite gone yet, still whispering little bits of stories into the wind and we're lucky enough to have listened in the time it's got left." His arm snakes out from her grasp and he lifts it over her, holding still just a moment before delicately draping it around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.

"We are lucky for that, aren't we, Clara Oswald."

Reaching up with her left hand, she intertwines her fingers through his, hanging just above her breast. She knows the rest of the day he'll spend trying to make her laugh so he can laugh; the rest of the day will be spent trying to show her wonderful things so he can watch her enjoy them. Clara knows he'll spend the rest of her days, as many or as few as they are, doing his best to make her happy in all the ways he knows how and she holds to him tightly as she nods and assures him quietly, "We are lucky for that, Doctor."


End file.
